BGC inks integrity-led agreement with IBIA

The Betting and Gaming Council (BGC) has agreed an integrity-led partnership with the International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA).

The agreement includes the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the aim of promoting regulated betting market frameworks and related integrity issues.

It will involve a wide range of activities, including sharing information and intelligence about relevant sports betting markets, launching research studies in areas of mutual interest, and cooperating on integrity-led marketing and advertising.

“The IBIA is playing a decisive part in ensuring that sports betting markets are duly regulated, and sports integrity is at the core of its action,” BGC chairman Brigid Simmonds said.

“The BGC will wholeheartedly join this effort and bring its experience and expertise in promoting world class standards in new and emerging sports betting markets,” Simmonds added.

BGC members make up more than 97% of the UK’s sports betting market and include bet365, Entain, Flutter Entertainment and William Hill.

Many BGC members are also members of the IBIA, sharing data on sports betting with the IBIA’s monitoring and alert platform as a condition of membership of the match-fixing prevention body.

“Both of our associations are active internationally and in many of the same markets, share many of the same members and have many of the same regulatory goals,” IBIA CEO Khalid Ali

“We’ve already been collaborating in markets such as Brazil and it was a natural progression to a more formal and structured relationship.

“The scope of our combined membership gives us a powerful mandate to speak on behalf of a large part of the regulated sector and policymakers welcome that level of focused industry engagement,” Ali added.

The IBIA operates similar MoU partnerships with trade bodies including Spain’s Jdigital, Swedish trade association BOS and with regulators including the Malta Gaming Authority.